


Echoes

by kscribbles



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, two docs have a chat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 06:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18047258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kscribbles/pseuds/kscribbles
Summary: "Not my TARDIS, then?”





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> The bulk of this wee ficlet was written on a lunch break. Ten and Thirteen, they just... wanted to talk. Set somewhen series 11ish, and simultaneously... some point when Ten was alone. Pick your poison.
> 
> No beta. And oh yeah, hi, I might be writing fic again, and not just this one.   
> *waves*

Wait? Had his sign changed color again? Why would it have? _Oh well, never mind_ , he thought, bounding through the doors of his ship. He needed to get out of Cardiff, and quick...

“Em…” he said. It wasn’t just the sign. The interior was totally different. Beautiful in its own way. Almost like his ship’s coral struts had grown and evolved, and become more… more everything. And less? Somehow. 

“Hi!” 

A blond woman in a lovely blue-grey coat, dancing around a very different console greeted him, her face lit with excitement. He wondered if people just walked into this ship all the time.

She immediately recognized him, it seemed. He had no idea about her. Well, that would make sense. “Oh,” she said, “you’re not supposed to be here, mate.”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, stepping more fully into the control room, looking around. “I’m gathering that. I did wonder, about the sign outside. Not my TARDIS, then?”

“Nope. Not anymore. She still likes you though. Wouldn’t have let you in otherwise. I sort of had to beg, the first time. But she warmed up quickly.” She gently patted a lever handle.

“ _Your_ TARDIS, then?” he asked. He knew, he felt it, but he had to be sure. “You’re the Doctor?”

“‘Course I am.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant.” 

“That’s what **I** said!” 

He felt himself grinning at her, a bit like an idiot. It felt good to smile again, and mean it. 

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” he said, poking his head around a crystalline pillar. “Took a bit of risk, though. Parking her here.”

She scrunched up her face at him. It was sort of... adorable? And judgey. He felt very judged. 

“Uh. You did it all the time,” she pointed out. “And him before you.” 

“Yeah, I know. That’s why it’s a risk.”

“It’s the middle of the night. 2120. Torchwood’s long gone. You’re—“

“I’m—”

She must remember now? Thankfully, he didn’t have to finish the sentence, remind her what he’d been up to. 

“Oh yeah! Blocked it out. Sorry about that… I just—” She switched gears mid-sentence, tried to change the subject, but she knew, and he knew that she knew, she wasn't actually changing it at all. It was the first time since he stepped on her ship that he saw himself in her. “So,” she went on, “you’re alone now.”

“Yes. For a while. It’s all right though. It’s fine, actually. You?” 

“Me? Nah. Have a whole gang, haven’t I. Fam’s asleep. You know... humans.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Fam?” When were they from, he wondered. Not 2120. 

“Ryan, Graham, Yaz. They’re my best friends. They’re amazing. You’d love ‘em.” She beamed. She clearly loved them too; it was written all over her face, in her brown eyes. She looked so… _healed_. 

“Three?” he asked. 

“Sometimes more. Ryan’s Dad. Yaz’s mum. People we pick up along the way. You know how it is, adventurin’.”

“Yeah. Sometimes.”

“Oh, everything’s better with more! A few, at least!”

This Doctor had an abundance of joy he’d not experienced in… well, many regenerations. He had to get out of here before he found a way to join her gang. Wouldn’t that be chronologically problematic?

“I’d love to stay and chat. Honestly, I would. But wouldn’t want to wake your... fam? And I should probably…” he pointed over his shoulder, toward the door, “...before paradoxes or—”

“—Spoilers?”

“Yeah.”

“Go on then.” She made a shooing wave. “Back to your own TARDIS (and careful out there). Tell her she’ll see me soon.”

Her TARDIS chirped around her, with affectionate warning. The TARDIS seemed happy too, bless the old girl. Older.

“Soon?” He still had no idea which him, or _them_ , she was. 

“Oh, not that soon.” She went back to fiddling with the console, examining a miniature crystal version of their police box. “Takes the universe a while to get ready for me.” 

Oooh, a bit enigmatic that. Spoke volumes, really. 

He chuckled. “I believe it. Right. I’ll be off, then.” He headed for the door, wishing for a ramp, for a slightly more dramatic exit. He didn’t really want to go back out there. Hand on the door, he turned back, hoping to see her warm eyes again. “Love the coat, by the way, Doctor.”

“Thanks!” She looked up again, preening a bit, hands on her lapels in a way that reminded him of their first self. Smiling, in a way that one seldom did. 

What must _he_ look like to her? Ten lifetimes and change, he was an echo. The shadow of _her_ former self. 

But _this_ Doctor? She positively radiated sunshine. He was glad he accidentally stumbled into her TARDIS. It was a shame he probably had to make himself forget her. He wondered if her family knew how lucky they were. 

“Oh, and Doctor,” she said, when he still hesitated to pull open the door. “It works out, you know.”

“What does?”

“Everything. In the end.”

 

FIN


End file.
